After a good night of sleep, we arrived at Frawley Stadium (start/finish area) at 6 a.m. We were wandering around the parking lot, just trying to keep our legs moving and checking out the area. Saw some locals there and some strange sights as well. One strange sight was this guy - let me try to explain this - He had white shorts pulled up to mid-belly, with this very tight, very wide waistband - picture the shorts that boxers wear. (Not boxer shorts...boxing shorts.)He had one white kneesock on and I guess a regular sock on the other foot. No shirt. This is what I saw initially - the high shorts, kneesock and no shirt. Not all that strange, even though it was chilly in the morning. Robert said - "he's got his race number PINNED TO HIS CHEST".
Huh? What do you mean, pinned to his chest??
So I (unfortunately) got a better look - and yes, the number was PINNED TO HIS CHEST. I've seen guys with nipple rings attach the safety pins to the rings before, so that wouldn't have been so much of a surprise, but THIS guy had the safety pins THROUGH HIS SKIN. If you don't believe me, there's a shot of him in the photo album at races2run.com. I tried to look (without getting to close or staring) and from what I could see, it was through the skin - with no blood. I don't know if he was some kind of undead vampire or some freaky s&m dude or what. It was completely gross. And, as it often seems for me, the minute I recognize a sight like this, the chances of me being thrown into this person's path again and again rises exponentially. During the first ten miles I kept noticing him in my peripheral vision. At one point as we were running by the beautiful Brandywine River, he was inches from me. I could have touched his undead arm to my left. I immediately broke into a sprint just to get myself away from the general area. (Shiver).
My feet started to go numb at mile 7. No idea why, and it only got worse. I would wiggle my toes to keep them from going to sleep and that helped, but after a while, I just stopped. So it became like running with cinder blocks attached to my ankles.
At mile 10, I stopped to wipe my face with a sweat towel I left at a friend's "tent" that was set up for the race. Robert didn't stop, and that was the last I saw him until about mile 18. The boy was moving!
I only saw one street guy on the course - he was seated on a milk crate giving the stink eye to all the runners as they went by. Oh, and I did see one female crackhead was yelling "I'm right behind you!" She was scary too. It was Sunday, so there were a bunch of downtown people going to church (we sinners were running....bad runners) and MAN, the outfits!! I saw one guy in this white double breasted suit with gold buttons and shiny, pointed shoes. His date or wife or whatever had a fancy dress with an equally fancy hat. I got the feeling that the dressing up was as important as attending the services, or maybe more so.
After the first 10 miles, there were three 5.4 (?) loops that ran along the riverfront and also into a not-so-nice part of town. It was kind of boring looping like that. When I finally caught up to Robert at mile 18, we ran together for a little while. I finally saw my family shortly before that, and that was a huge boost. My son and daughter, mom and dad, brother and family. There's nothing like support at the end of a marathon, it's so important. So on the way back, I pushed a little harder, "only" having a 10k to go. My hamstring started cramping at mile 21 and 23 so I had to back down a little more than I wanted to. I used four Gu's and needed them all. There was a beer stop at mile 23 and I had about 1/4 of a cup for fun.
Saw no one I knew at the finish line which was kind of a bummer. My family didn't make it back in time and Robert had fallen behind.
Overall, a good experience, difficult, sweaty, painful, but fun in a weird kind of way. Wonder where the next one will be???
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